The overhanging eaves made it difficult to observe what was going on below. In order to peep over the edge of the roof, the shipmaster was compelled to sprawl upon his stomach with his heels higher than his head and with no purchase by which to maintain his grip. It was a wide-angled roof or he would have tobogganed off into space before his laborious descent carried him as far as the eaves. However, in his trade a man who could not hang on by his eyelids was a lubber of a sailor, and the bold O’Shea wriggled into position an inch at a time. The mysterious noises might have been made by Johnny Kent prowling in search of him, but O’Shea was afraid to call out lest he might frighten away the object of his vigil. His trousers catching on a nail and holding him fast for a moment, he ceased his precarious exertions long enough to listen. This time his ear caught the crackle of crumpling paper and a succession of sharper noises as if some one were breaking dry wood over his knee. He smelt the unmistakable odor of kerosene. Almost directly beneath him, and not more than a dozen feet distant, an attempt was well under way to set fire to Johnny Kent’s barn. With more speed and less caution O’Shea managed to poke his head over the edge of the roof, intending to get his bearings before launching the attack. He found himself directly above a shadowy figure which flitted to the wood-pile and back again with quick, furtive movements. Captain O’Shea had never found himself in a more embarrassing situation. He disliked the idea of letting go and diving head first, which was the quickest method of coming to close quarters. And even if he should try to turn about and launch himself right end to, he was likely to hit the earth with the deuce and all of a thump and perhaps break his leg on a stick of cord-wood. The ladder by which he had climbed to the roof was on the other side of the building and he had no time to scramble in search of it. While he hesitated the man beneath him scratched a match. Startled and flurried at sight of this imminent danger, O’Shea let his grip loosen for an instant and the law of gravity solved the problem for him. With a blood-curdling yell he slid over the brink, his fingers clawing wildly at the shingles and the wooden gutter. Head downward he plunged and by rights should have broken his neck. His own theory to explain his survival was that an Irishman always alights on his feet. The fact was that the incendiary stranger happened to be in a stooping posture and O’Shea’s head smote him squarely between the shoulders.